Alexandra of Hanover is not only the royal with the most modern and discreet looks. The daughter of Caroline of Monaco and Ernst August of Hanover also stands out for her passion for literature, which she shares with her sister Charlotte Casiraghi. True 360-degree princesses, Charlotte earned a degree in Philosophy at the Sorbonne and in 2015 founded Monaco Philosophical Encounters, before publishing her first solo book, The Fêlure. Alexandra also studied Political Science and Philosophy, “more out of a desire to nourish myself intellectually than for a professional aim,” as the young woman once explained.
Alexandra of Hanover has followed in her sister’s literary footsteps and has also debuted as a writer with the short stories she published in the travel magazine Passager. But her most intimate thoughts have been shared for four years now on Hyperbole For Breakfast, a blog she defines this way: “A vomiting of existential words, opinions contrary to the mainstream, and hyperboles at all costs.”
With a tone replete with irony, references to pop culture and analyses of literary theory, Alexandra of Hanover has explored in her posts topics such as the “younger sister syndrome” and age crises. The niece of Prince Albert II of Monaco has spoken candidly about what it is like to be the youngest in a large family and how she is constantly mistaken for someone much younger, admitting that she feels that a part of her will always be perceived as “in a state of growth.”
She also shares reading lists as in a post titled Douchebag Literature & The Case Against the Beach Read, aimed especially at readers who “hate summer” and prefer to flee from “light beach books,” opting for complex narratives and literary antiheroes. And she does not shy away from controversial topics, such as when she conducted a critical analysis of the tradwives phenomenon or traditional wives.
Alexandra of Hanover and Marriage
In her latest post, the Monegasque royal begins by referencing the announcement of her upcoming wedding to Ben-Sylvester Strautmann. “I cannot ignore that I just got engaged very recently and I am immensely grateful for everyone’s messages and for all the new readers who follow me here,” writes Alexandra Hanover, her pen name. She then dives into a concise essay on “marriage plots as a narrative device in literature.”
Alexandra of Hanover with her fiancé and her engagement ring.
To do so, she begins by recalling the famous opening line of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man, in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” She then enthusiastically recommends Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Marriage Plot. “What would Flaubert have written if Emma Bovary could simply request a divorce? That, in broad terms, is what Eugenides’s novel asks: what sense does a marriage plot have in today’s world?”
But the main body of the post centers on one of the year’s literary scandals. The book Life of M. by Rachel Cusk. “It is essentially the portrait of a fictional actress, whose biographical details astonishingly align with Natalie Portman’s career,” writes Alexandra of Hanover, whom she was not fond of the novel at all.
“Removing a character of all her vivifying qualities and humanity, while relying on a narrator who judges (even though that is precisely the aim), sometimes gives the impression that it is the author who judges M, rather than the culture that has conditioned women to feel the need to be irreproachable to the point of appearing unsympathetic,” writes the royal on her blog.
Moving and Independence
In another of her most intimate and personal posts, Alexandra of Hanover guides us through an important life moment: the story of leaving the family home she shared with her mother, Caroline, Princess of Monaco. In this January blog post, the young woman details with great honesty the nerves and the psychological process of fully embracing adulthood. “Last week I moved into my first apartment and I’m interested in thinking about the implications this has for me as someone in my twenties who feels increasingly older,” she writes.
“A wave of nerves came over me during the first night in the apartment; I almost felt ridiculous not being able to fall asleep,” she tells us, candidly. “I think the first night in any new home has a surreal dimension, something like when you travel to stay at someone’s house, you arrive at their home late at night and you go straight to bed, sleeping in an unfamiliar bedroom, trying to figure out where the light switches are and tiptoeing around the room.”
